From Cusco we took the overnight, 14 hour bus to Nazca, a route which has more hairpins than Andre Agassi's Roland Garros toupe (20 in case you were wondering) and probably caused just as much of a sleepless night. Originally the plan was to stop off at the Nazca Lines but due to the afore mentioned incident, neither of us were in the mood and opted for a short bus hop north to Ica which gave an opportunity for more zzzzzs. In hindsight it may well have been for the best. At a local tourist office we saw a sign that informed customers over 90kg/14 stone/198 pounds (for the European/British/American readers) that they would have to pay for 2 seats - a cost that would have pinched the pocket of the burly (chubby) Danny O'Brien. Ica itself is located in the sand dunes, close to Peru's Pacific coast, and these give an opportunity for another travelling first, sand boarding. Around 16 of us were loaded up into a buggy and tore around and up and down the dunes, before throwing ourselves down the slope on what effectively seemed to be former tables and doors. It's important here to note that sand boarding consisted more of sledging rather than that practised by fondue eating visitors to Chamonix, although we did have a go at the latter with mixed success.

From Ica we moved on up to Lima, and in all honesty were fairly uninspired by it. Maybe it was the toll of rushing for the previous 3 weeks but for 2 days we meandered around Miraflores, the only event of note being a trip to a local electric/salsa club on the Thursday night. As the only gringos out of around 400 people we stood out like sore thumbs. Throw into that my lack of rhythm/coordination on the dancefloor, and the fact that i was wearing a 'Death Road Bolivia' t shirt and our chances of integration were slim. Somewhat happily we now head to Panama for a week.